Review: Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 2 The Lost Lords (PS4)

17. Mar, 2015

Title: Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 2 The Lost LordsFormat: PlayStation Network Download (1.4 GB)Release Date: February 3, 2015Publisher: Telltale GamesDeveloper: Telltale GamesOriginal MSRP: $4.99 (Single Episode) / $24.99 (Season Pass)ESRB Rating: MGame of Thrones: Season 1 is also available on PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android.
The PlayStation 4 download version was used for this review.
A copy of this game was purchased by the reviewer.PS Nation Review Policy

Gameplay:
First I wanted to talk about spoilers. While I will not be spoiling anything in the current episode I may mention spoilers from previous episodes (which will be behind spoiler tags). Even though I’m reviewing these as separate episodes they are really part of something larger and need to be talked about in a larger sense sometimes. I think it is fair to discuss previous episode spoilers, since you shouldn’t be reading a review of an episode without having played the previous episode first.

If you are waiting to buy Season One after each episode is out be aware that I plan on writing a recap summing up whether or not you should play the entire series. My quick take based on the first two episodes is for you buy this game NOW and play each episode as it is released. Video games like this should not be binged in my opinion, they deserve to be savored and the events digested before you move on to the next episode.

Secondly I wanted to share the choices that I made in each episode. However since I don’t want to spoil anything they will be hidden behind a spoiler image. Simply click on the spoiler image right before the score for the episode and a new tab will open with an image of my choices. Naturally I thought of this after I finished Episode One so I didn’t have that for the review but will have it going forward.

The mechanics of Game of Thrones: Season One, Episode Two are basically the same as Episode One. The disadvantage of this is that the problems with Episode One stand out even more in this one since it is such a conversation based episode. The concentration on certain characters does feel authentic to the source material though. Certain people are more likely to use words as their weapons instead of their swords.

New to this episode are two playable characters: Asher the second eldest son of the house of Forrester (seen in the first episode but not playable), and a mystery character that was seen in the first episode (but not playable). Two of the previous characters that were playable are still playable in this episode.

Click for Episode One spoiler

Speaking of playable characters, I can’t get over the fact that Ethan was killed. This is one of the situations I was complaining about in my previous review. During the conversation I was having with Ramsay Snow I encountered a response that I thought was being directed at one of my family members, since they just spoke, but was instead directed at Ramsay. I feel that decision caused Ethan to die which really frustrates me. Had I known that I was directing my comment to Ramsay I would have chosen differently and who knows, Ethan might still be a playable character.

The fact that I have spent a lot of time fuming over a specific death is normally a great thing for a video game, it means that I have been totally sucked into its world. However in this case it feels really cheap. If it was preventable it would be a different matter than if it was just scripted to happen and that is what is really gnawing at me.

… not a lot of action happens …

If I have spent all this time upset over something that was going to happen regardless of my actions, I would be even more upset with the broken game mechanic because I would feel like I was in better control of the story with a working game. To quote Mrs. White from Clue “it-it- the f – it -flam – flames. Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathl- heaving breaths. Heaving breaths… Heathing…”. That about sums up my thoughts on this. I would rather be able to think about what the death means instead of whether or not it could be prevented.

This brings me to one point about these games, the reason I don’t know if a specific character lives or not is because I play the game once and then do the review. I don’t want to go back and play it a different way to see if things turn out differently because I want to experience the story and not pick the best possible options on all my actions. Part of the fun of these games is that you don’t know what choices are important until after you make them. Why ruin that?

This episode has a lot more dialog than the previous episode which highlights my issues of not having enough time to make decisions and not knowing who you are directing those responses to. That’s not to say that it isn’t a fun episode, just that not a lot of action happens. When the action does start up though it really sucks you into the fight and gets your blood flowing.

Visuals:
The thing about this episode is how gorgeous Essos really is. I really like how each part of the world has a very different look and feel to it that not only highlights the different environments of Essos and Westeros, but also each civilization in each land. Just looking at a person in the game you can tell where they are from, or if you look at a town you can have a very educated guess on how those people will dress and act.

Now while the visuals aren’t the greatest thing in the world they are incredible. You will encounter popups or tearing but given the painting-like look to the game those issues don’t really bother me.

Audio:
There is not much more that I can add to the audio that I didn’t say in my review of Episode 1, other than this is some of the best audio I have ever heard in a game.

… I think big things are coming …

Online/Multiplayer:
This is a single player game, though at the end of the episode you can see how your major choices compare to the rest of the community.

Conclusion:
This is an incredibly hard game to review, since as a standalone episode it is part of a larger game. It’s like reviewing Super Mario Bros. based just on World 1-2. I now see why people don’t like reviewing individual episodes of TV shows and would rather review seasons. This particular episode didn’t have as many “wow” moments as the last but it laid the groundwork for future episodes.

Do I give it a lower score because what happened didn’t seem that important or do I give it a higher score because it could have huge ramifications in future episodes? What happens if nothing pays off the way I think it will? At the end of the day I have to give it a score on the higher end of things because I think big things are coming and those things started in this episode.

Score:

* All screenshots used in this review were taken directly from the game using the Share functionality on the PlayStation 4.

Click on the image below to see my choices in this episode. I would highly recommend that you come back to this after you have finished the episode.